A Fragrant Offering.

As I let the music wash over me and feel the presence of the Lord all around, I mumble “Lord, I love you with all my heart”. Then the thought comes to me, do I? Can I?

“ I hear your words and I read the desires of your heart. You want to love me completely, yet there is this doubt in your mind that you really do. Maybe there are other things, other people who take up part of your heart. However my eye is on your desire, my heart is meeting with your heart because you are feeling and expressing the desire to love me completely. Of course there will be other things in your life, but If you are loving them more than me I am helping you to change that. Remember change it slow. Seed that is sown takes a long time till it grows into a tree. Yet the important thing is that you have loved and have expressed the desire to love me completely. You will never be able to love me like I love you but your desire is the only seed I need to grow that plant into a tree and that is what I am doing”.

From ch 12 John’s gospel takes a new course. The words in 12:1 should prepare us for that as well as the significance: “6 days before Passover”. The timing of Jesus’s passion was critical to explain the significance of His death as “the Lamb of God”. (1:29)

As you read today’s passage,John 12:1-11, I want you to close your eyes and imagine the amazing fragrance that is being released by the loving act of Mary as she anoints Jesus’s feet. Let that fragrance rise up and envelope you as you take in the way it envelopes the whole story as it unfolds from here. Let yourself be buried in it as you appreciate the beauty and fragrance of what Jesus was about to do, the fragrance that surrounds His very person and reflects His beauty.

Jesus interprets it as a prophecy of the fragrant anointing of His body for His burial. (12:7) Reminding us that His death is going to be the central theme of the following chapters.

It is so important that we keep in mind that any “Jesus” that is taught and propagated that does not include His death and resurrection, is not the “real Jesus”. Even as we see in vs 11 that there were many Jews who were “Going over to Jesus and putting their faith in Him”. At that stage the “complete Jesus” had not yet been revealed, so their “faith” was more like an admiration for Him or the miracles He had done and His wise teaching.

I listen attentively to the way Jesus is represented by various people and He is so often characterised by His incredible compassion, as we saw in the previous chapter and His general love and desire for the best for us. Often I hear phrases like, ”I have been set free”. and I wonder whether that person really understands what that means. The fact of the matter is that our greatest problem is the fact that we are sinners headed for judgement and need to be rescued from that. Our walk with God starts therefore with an understanding of the seriousness of this separation and judgement and many are unwilling to admit their state of sinfulness and need for rescue and therefore manufacture a Jesus who suits their perceived needs. Our Father God, however saw our state as being so serious that He gave His one and only Son to DIE on our behalf, taking that punishment from us upon Himself.

That is why this message is central to the whole of the gospel and to Jesus’s life. And should be the central point of our faith in Him.

As I conclude, I loved the picture and smelled the redolent waves of the pure nard and it opened a new vista to the beauty and value of my Lord Jesus. It is quite in order to allow your senses the freedom to smell, taste, feel and see things in the scriptures, to enable them to be more real. Remember the psalmist’s words: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

I leave that with you for the week,. Blessings till next time we meet.